A Brief History of Time

Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time is an absolute gem. I would like to begin this review with a personal account of my relationship with the book.

I first read this cogent account of the universe's formation, inner mechanisms, and remaining mysteries when I was thirteen years old. I fell in love. This book was the single most important text in my decision to pursue knowledge of theoretical physics and cosmology. This book was the first of many popular physics books I read. Following my experience with A Brief History of Time, I read The Elegant Universe, The View from the Center of the Universe, Entanglement, Galileo's Finger, and subscribed to Discover and Scientific American. This trail of physics knowledge, which began with Professor Hawking, ultimately led to my choice to enroll at MIT to study physics.

I do not tell the reader this story with the intent to impress my own intelligence upon him. I don't think that I was a particularly brilliant eighth grader, and I think that any other 13-year-old willing to invest the time I did in the book would understand it as well as I did. I mention my age at the time of my reading the book to show the reader how successfully Hawking manages to explain these mind-boggling concepts to a reader who is neither particularly well-educated nor well-versed in physics. I can reread this book now, with two years of physics classes and rather more years of life experience behind me, and gain much more from the book than I did then. Nevertheless, Hawking managed to convey enough of the wonder of the universe to get me hooked even then.

Despite currently being very well-versed in the language of theoretical physics, and despite having read innumerable books written for the layman on physics, my understanding of many difficult concepts can be traced back, more or less unchanged, to Professor Hawking's clear explanations. His language is comfortable and easy to understand, and the diagrams included manage to elucidate rather than obscure the subject matter.

The only problem A Brief History of Time is that it is now rather outdated. It was originally published in 1988, and there have been a few changes in the understanding of the universe since that time. String theory and the Higgs model of the universe, for example, are concepts that do not make a significant appearance in the book, simply because they were not widely accepted at the time of publication.

I would like to note that there has been a more recent edition released. I have not read this edition; it may address some of these omissions.

Nevertheless, Hawking's account remains the single best book for anyone with a limited background in physics who would like to learn more.

Rating: 7.5/8

Tea: Something mentally stimulating and refreshing, without the artificial rush of caffeine. I suggest ginger or mint.